Backing up FreeNAS to external drives
I love this little device: it's an iXsystems MiniNAS running FreeNAS 9.2, with tons of disk space, RAM, fast network connections, all on a low-profile device that uses precious little energy (30W). Nice! And having all my important stuff on one box not only gives me the freedom to screw around with my desktops but simplifies and centralizes the work that goes into backing up my information.
It's tempting to be lulled into security by a hefty NAS running the ZFS file system on RAID-6. Yes you've got some redundancy and a resistant file system. But RAID is not backup - a mistake too many make. And here I ran into some trouble. FreeNAS gives you tons of options for transferring zpool datasets around, and since it's networked you can rsync your heart's content to other systems, but what if you just want to back the stuff up to a hard drive locally? Like an external, USB hard drive? Turns out, there's a way, but it requires a bit of Unix-foo.
Fortunately, this is FreeBSD, so lots of things are possible. The rest is at my website, www.therandymon.com.
It's tempting to be lulled into security by a hefty NAS running the ZFS file system on RAID-6. Yes you've got some redundancy and a resistant file system. But RAID is not backup - a mistake too many make. And here I ran into some trouble. FreeNAS gives you tons of options for transferring zpool datasets around, and since it's networked you can rsync your heart's content to other systems, but what if you just want to back the stuff up to a hard drive locally? Like an external, USB hard drive? Turns out, there's a way, but it requires a bit of Unix-foo.
Fortunately, this is FreeBSD, so lots of things are possible. The rest is at my website, www.therandymon.com.
- Small single file size limit (4.2 GB)
- Small total drive capacity
- Microsoft's long filename patents
- Non-free extensions that only work with Microsoft operating systems
If you live completely in Linux, you can format your drives as ext4. But good luck trying to get Windows or Macs to see it.If you live completely in Apple-land, you can format your drives as HFS+. But good luck trying to get either Windows or Linux to see it.
If you live completely in Windows, you can format your drives as NTFS. Linux does have multiple competing options of supporting NTFS, but they all basically suck (read only, disables journal, etc.)
Case in point:
My car's stereo system has a USB port that you stick a thumb drive into to play mp3s. Guess what the only supported file system is?
New smart TVs have USB ports that you can stick a thumb drive into to play MP4s, MKVs, and AVIs. Guess what the only supported file system is?
My digital camera uses an SD card to store photos and videos that I take. Guess what the only supported file system is?